career: timeline, and a new beginning

June 20, 2018

2004: Second year medical student.

2005: Scientist in training (yeah, that one didn’t pan out so well).

2007: BRAND NEW intern 🙂 (first rotation = regional hospital NICU)

2008: call haikus.

2008, again: PICU misery

2010: Fellowship bag inventory

2013: Attendinghood!  (I still have the stapler pictured in this post and I still love it!)

2016: Accepted position as Associate Program Director for pediatric residency

2017: Reduced work schedule to 80% time

2018:  RESIDENTS START!
Summary of my work schedule / mix:

– 5 half-day clinics (~55% of the usual 9 at our institution) – one full day of patients, 3 half-days of patents most weeks.  Many of these days I will be paired with a resident so the day will be spent seeing patients but also teaching mixed in there.

My patient mix – still lots of growth, diabetes, transgender/gender-nonconforming, PCOS, thyroid, smattering of other things.  Pet project: we are working on building a more comprehensive gender clinic with multiple disciplines (mental health provider, adolescent med, endo) this fall.

– 2 half-days of GME work (increased from 1, beginning in July!) – meetings, prepping of educational materials, planning didactics, giving talks to residents, wrangling encouraging faculty.  Perhaps some research (small GME-related projects) in there if possible . . .

– 1 half-day of admin (clinical catchup, GME/student overflow, planning)

– 1 full day OFF each week (kid activities, podcast, me time, a day to sleep in 🙂 )

– 1/6 call (we are adding another provider!)

WHEW.  I have definitely come a long way!  And I have no idea what will come next.  I could see myself becoming Program Director (rather than Associate, which is like 2nd in command) someday, or working with fellows if we were ever to move somewhere (we’re talking long term, here!).  I also would love to be a division leader someday, when the kids are much older.  I’d looooove to take even less call (particularly the overnight phone calls) . . . but that is probably unrealistic, unless we move to a big academic center.  I have learned that I do like doing a number of different things — 100% clinical isn’t quite the answer for me.

Today our residents begin after over 2 years of prep work, and I am really excited to enter into this next phase.  Here we go!!!

11 Comments

  • Reply Lee March 10, 2019 at 7:06 pm

    Good luck!

  • Reply Krishna March 10, 2019 at 9:00 pm

    Good luck on this new milestone.. I so love this post for the very clear milestone view across years , am inspired to make one myself, thanks for this

  • Reply Elaine March 10, 2019 at 7:06 pm

    Good luck! Reading this list makes me so happy and excited for the future ahead! One of my favourite Paeds Endos at my hospital does a mix of clinical and post grad medical education, she”s a huge reason why I passed our crazy exams, and it seems like such a great balance and a way to get to know the juniors outside of Endo.

  • Reply CBS March 10, 2019 at 7:06 pm

    Oh that’s really neat to reflect on that career path and development and see how far you’ve come. The visual person in me would like to make a chart which included location and family milestones as well.

    Also I ordered a Hobinochi Weeks avec for July-December. I’m not normally a daily planner but could use a bit more structure to my planning and hoping this might help.

  • Reply Christine Cortese March 10, 2019 at 7:01 pm

    Hi there! I hope this comment isn’t seen as insensitive or rude but it’s a real question in my mind. I grew up in the 50s and all through my life I traveled and met a wide variety of people, and the people with imprecise gender were pretty few and far between (we were the free spirits of the 60s, and in my circle were hardly discriminatory!). Then in the 80s and 90s I heard of all the hormone disruptors in the environment, and amphibians started to have gender issues (the least of their problems at that time). I’m just wondering if what seems to be a sudden eruption of gender shifting in the young is the result of environmental factors? Does anyone have any idea?

    • Reply theSHUbox March 10, 2019 at 7:06 pm

      Not insensitive at all 🙂 I think a lot of it is just increased acceptance, but it is certainly possible there are some environmental components as well. That said, most transgender patients have normal hormone levels for their natal sex (ie hormones correspond to the parts they were initially born with) so there isn’t a clear association there.

  • Reply Jaimie Cairns March 10, 2019 at 7:01 pm

    I love your blog (and have been reading since at least….2 years before AB), so I loved seeing these flashbacks. What I loved about them most was how real you are (the crappy mexican restaurant and the co-worker you don’t like were my favorites). I just wanted to comment to say to keep sharing your feelings and thoughts like you always have 🙂

    Good luck on the new program!

  • Reply John March 10, 2019 at 7:05 pm

    nice one!

  • Reply Savi March 10, 2019 at 7:06 pm

    Good luck on the new residency! (I am a podcast listener – have listened every single one of your 40+ episodes and finally decided to check out your blog!)

  • Reply Swank March 10, 2019 at 7:08 pm

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